Tag: Character: Rico

Dawn didn’t realize until they’d already left the common room that Derwen was still with them. She wished the faerie would leave, so they could talk more freely, but of course Derwen would get offended if Dawn actually said that. And since she was friends with Edie, Edie probably wanted her around with them.

If Dawn thought of any other questions to ask a faerie, she could ask now. But Derwen had already answered her only question—she didn’t know what faerie might have killed someone on campus. If they didn’t know who was dead, they wouldn’t know who to suspect.

Even if they did know who the victim was, she realized, they probably wouldn’t know who to suspect. Except for Mardalan. She could always suspect Mardalan.

“Come on,” Dawn said quietly to Rico, shifting so his arms weren’t around her anymore and taking his hand instead. She couldn’t just stand here and speculate—she had to find out what Lorelei knew.

They worked through the crowd to find Edie with Corrie right at the front. Dawn hadn’t been able to see her because everyone between them was taller than Edie. “Where did Charlie go?” she asked when she reached them.

“He’s calling other RAs,” Corrie said. “They said the missing people were probably in other dorms.”

Dawn nodded. Just like Naomi had been the last time. “That’s good. And I guess he has to let the other dorms know that we have some of their people.”

When Dawn and her friends reached the common room, they found it packed, beyond standing room only. Of course, the residents of the fifth floor were probably the last to make it down, so everyone who lived on all the other floors would already be here. Dawn looked around quickly, but Rico found her first, reaching out from the sea of bodies to grab her hand.

She gratefully allowed him to pull her close to his warm, solid body. “What’s going on?” he muttered in her ear. “Lorelei didn’t say anything.”

She shook her head and stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “She said she’d explain after she took attendance.” It was so loud in there that she couldn’t have explained much to him anyway. Everyone seemed to be speculating and worrying about what they were doing there—some of them at the tops of their voices. She thought she could pick out Lorelei’s voice, but not quite make out what she was saying.

Edie’s eyes widened. That was a strange thought. But if Elrath thought it was possible for his brother to be revived, then wouldn’t he be trying to do that, instead of “fixing” the magic himself?

Though she wasn’t sure he liked his brother very much. Alaineth sounded like he had been a terrible ruler, and from what Tom had said, Elrath never even told anyone that he had a brother. He must have liked his sister somewhat, though, or at least wanted her back so he didn’t have to rule, so why wasn’t he trying to bring her back? Maybe because she’d been pretending to be human when she died, and done it on purpose, she couldn’t be retrieved.

But Derwen was shaking her head. “No, it’s not like that. You can’t bring back someone who’s been dead for a long time. We can be restored if we’re not completely dead, but it takes longer and is more difficult the longer and more badly someone has been injured.”

This time, it was easy for Edie to watch Derwen move around the room as she ate her delicious pancakes and fruit. People were giving her a wide berth, even jumping out of her way, as she trailed water across the floor. It was hard to believe that her clothes and hair could have held that much rain, and yet she continued to leave a shining path behind her like a slug.

Edie got her pancakes and added some fresh fruit on the side—she wanted to be at least a little bit healthy—and headed back to the table, intending to ask Derwen whether her faerie self was in any way connected to plants. After all, Leila was clearly connected to the plants, but she wasn’t a plant herself… though in some ways her tree could be said to be part of her. Derwen clearly wasn’t a dryad, but maybe she was something similar.

However, when she reached the table, she found that Derwen hadn’t returned yet—but Corrie had, and Roe was sitting next to her. “Oh, hi!” Edie said.

Edie knocked on Derwen’s door and waited for a moment. The door was answered by one of Derwen’s roommates, who squinted at Edie, smiled, and called over her shoulder, “Sarah, your friend Edie is here.”

“What does she want?” Derwen called.

The roommate—Edie still hadn’t learned their names, though they had obviously learned hers—turned back to Edie and raised her eyebrows.